After Sunderland’s loss at Huddersfield, manager Michael Beale had little encouraging things to say. He acknowledged that one specific issue is getting out of hand.
Sunderland’s offensive misfiring, midfield defeat, and lack of “dirty” defensive labor against Huddersfield, according to Michael Beale, are all his and his staff’s faults.
At the John Smith’s Stadium, Sunderland gave maybe their worst performance of the entire season, which was a major setback after three straight victories.
Beale expressed a similar opinion, stating that Sunderland was subpar in every facet of the game.
“Really disappointing,” Beale told safc.com after the game. “We conceded again from a set play away from home. It’s an area we need to improve on.
“Certainly in the time I’ve been here it’s been really costly to the team. In the first half it was pretty much a midfield battle. I thought they were up and at us and we need to stand up for ourselves a little bit at times.
“When we get opportunities we need to be better in the final third with our last pass or shot. Second half we opened up and it made for a bit of an end-to-end game but we were the team chasing it as the away team, they had a couple of chances but it’s fair to say we did as well.
“I’m really disappointed because it’s an away game we’ve lost to a set play, that’s on me and the staff who have to find the answers to that, because we know coming away from home teams are going to go for you and when you can’t find a moment of quality you need to stay in the game, certainly in those moments.
The key moment in the game came when Huddersfield scored, and Sunderland were again caught out by a set-piece.
In fact, four of the last six goals Sunderland have conceded have come from set-pieces, with them all proving to be the deciding goal of the game.
This one was especially poor, with the Sunderland defence statuesque after Anthony Patterson parried away a free kick.
“When you can’t find it (the attacking quality) you have to do the horrible parts of the game, when the balls come in your box you have to put your body on the line, go in for rebounds.
“Where are we now that Patto made the rescue there? We need to be more proactive in those instances. A similar situation occurred in their box immediately before halftime, approximately five minutes later.
We ultimately conceded a goal on a set play as a result of not taking our chances, which is why we lost in both boxes. The same in Ipswich and Middlesbrough.
“I am repeating myself so we have to improve on that.”
